feel the sinking certainty that he had missed, that his life was
forfeit. In point of fact, the bolt had sunk so deep into the man it
only seemed to have vanished. The breaths between when he'd fired and
when the soldier sank to the ground were the longest he had ever known.
And here he was again. Only this time he was the one in motion. The
poets of the Khaiem would have a chance to call up another of the
andat-and the measure of that hope was his speed in finding them,
killing them, and burning their hooks.
It was a terrible wager, and more than his own life was in the balance.
Balasar was not a religious man. Questions of gods and heavens had
always seemed too abstract to him. But now, putting aside the maps, the
plans, all the work of his life prepared to find its fruition or else
its ruin, he walked to the window, watched the full moon rising over
this last night of the world as it had been, and put his hand to his
heart, praying to all the gods he knew with a single word.
Please.
8
Twilight came after the long sunset, staining red the high clouds in the
west. A light wind had come from the North, carrying the chill of
mountaintop glaciers with it, though there was little snow left on even
the highest peaks that could be seen from the city. It grabbed at the
loose shutters, banging them open and closed like an idiot child in love
with the noise. Banners rippled and trees nodded like old men. It was as
if an errant breath of winter had stolen into the warm nights. Otah sat
in his private chambers, still in his formal robes. He felt no drafts,
but the candles flickered in sympathy with the wind.
The letters unfolded before him were in a simple cipher. The years he
had spent in the gentleman's trade, carrying letters and contracts and
information on the long roads between the cities of the Khaiem, returned
to him, and he read the enciphered text as easily as if it had been
written plainly. It was as Nlaati and Cehmai had said. The Wards of the
Westlands were united in a state of panic. The doom of the world seemed
about to fall upon them.
Since the letters had arrived, Otah's world had centered on the news. He
had sent another runner to the Dai-kvo with a pouch so heavy with
lengths of silver, the man could have bought a fresh horse at every low
town he passed through if it would get him there faster. Otah had sat up
long nights with Nlaati and Cehmai, even with Liat and Nayiit. I Jere
was the plan, then. With the threat of an andat of their own, the Galts
would roll through the Westlands, perhaps Eddensea as well. In a year,
perhaps two, they might own Bakta and Eymond too. The cities of the
Khaiem would find themselves cut off from trade, and perhaps the rogue
poet would even become a kind of Galtic Dai-kvo in time. The conquest of
the Westlands was the first campaign in a new war that might make the
destruction of the Old Empire seem minor.
And still, Otah read the letters again, his mind unquiet. There was
something there, something more, that he had overlooked. The certainty
of the Gaits, their willingness to show their power. Whenever they tired
of trade or felt themselves losing at the negotiating tables, Galt had